Page 73 of No Mistress Of Mine

He’d told her their conversation on the topic wasn’t over, but he knew more conversation about this wasn’t going to change anything. He could understand her reluctance to face down society—thetoncould be a vicious, unrelenting gauntlet. But the fact that her reluctance was on his behalf, not her own, was frustrating as hell, for he’d face them all down until the end of his days and die with no regrets. He could tell her that until he was blue in the face, however, and he doubted it would make a particle of difference. No, in circumstances such as these, words were useless. Action was what was needed here.

And since he’d rather cut off his right arm than see her looking as she had earlier today in Regent’s Park, whatever action he took would involve much more than persuading her to the altar. It would have to be monumental, something along the line of melting a glacier or moving a mountain, which meant he couldn’t do it alone. He’d need help.

And he’d need time. Time to plan, to make arrangements, to give Lola room to breathe, and hopefully, the opportunity to miss him. Fortunately, time was something he had a bit of, for she had said she wouldn’t leave until the play was finished, and since she was an equal partner, the earl couldn’t close down the theater or shut the play down without her consent.

In the interim, however, his family would need to be dealt with. If they hadn’t already guessed, the flower show and his break with Georgiana would surely show them which way the wind was blowing, and he did not want to reveal his intentions and ignite a family quarrel prematurely. He remembered quite vividly the rows he’d had with his father on Lola’s account the first time around, his mother’s tearful pleas, the endless rounds of calls on him by aunts, uncles, and cousins, the reminders to think of his position and his duty and his family name. He had no illusions that it would play out any other way the second time around.

When it all proved futile, the reckoning would come, and when it did, he wanted it to be on his terms, in a time and place of his choosing. In the meantime, his best course was to go to Arcady. Going to Kent enabled him to avoid, for now, the parade of concerned relatives, and it might also pacify his family and quiet the gossip. It would also ensure that he wasn’t tempted to see Lola, and it would eliminate the possibility he would encounter her accidentally. Leaving town was clearly his best course.

A hansom pulled up to the curb in front of him and stopped. “Where to, guv’nor?” the driver asked, hopping down from the back to pull open the hansom’s wooden doors.

Denys considered a moment, then pulled out his watch and turned toward the streetlight to read its face. It was just past six, which meant he had plenty of time to put the wheels of his plan in motion and still catch the last train for Kent.

“White’s,” he said, and tucked the watch back in his waistcoat pocket. “And there’s half a crown above the fare if we arrive there within fifteen minutes.”

The driver earned that half a crown, depositing him in front of his club with three minutes to spare. By the time those three minutes were up, he had ordered dinner for five in a private dining room and dispatched a footman to South Audley Street with instructions for his valet. Althorp was to pack his things, inform his family he was off to Arcady, and meet him at Victoria Station in time to catch the nine o’clock train for Kent.

He then made liberal use of the club’s telephone. His account was charged an exorbitant amount for the privilege, but he didn’t mind that in the least. After all, when a man called out his heaviest guns, he ought to do it with flair.

Lola tried to be strong. She tried to focus all her attention on her work because that was the only thing she could control. She couldn’t change the world, not Denys’s world, anyway. She tried to tell herself that once she was gone, he’d be able to forget her, and she’d forget him, though she feared that sort of self-deceit wasn’t going to work a second time. Most of all, she tried not to miss him.

In all aspects, she failed miserably. Every morning on her way to rehearsal, she studied his office as she passed, hoping to catch a glimpse of him—alighting from his carriage, walking along the street, or perhaps standing by his office window up above. She could have spared herself that particular torture by turning onto Southampton Street and entering the rehearsal hall by the side entrance, but though it was painful, she couldn’t spare herself that pain.

Nor could she resist reading the society pages. That was an equally painful exercise, but she craved any information about him she could find. She wanted to know everything—the activities he was engaged in, the places he went, the people he might be with. By the time three days had passed, the papers had made it clear no announcement of engagement between Lord Somerton and Lady Georgiana Prescott would be forthcoming and that it was Lola Valentine’s appearance at the flower show and her wanton disregard for propriety that had caused the breach. Somerton, it was said, was so pained by MissValentine’s breathtaking lack of discretion that he’d gone to his estates in Kent to recuperate.

Lola stopped reading the papers after that, but during the three weeks that followed, avoiding the scandal sheets did little to help her to forget him. This was London, and reminders of him seemed to be everywhere—in the lifts of the Savoy, in the growlers that rolled past her on the street, in the flowers of the parks and those sold by the flower sellers around Covent Garden.

She tried to lose herself in work, but that, too, did little to relieve her heartache. She was grateful that her part inOthellowas the minor one of Bianca and not the leading role of Desdemona, for she could summon little interest in the play, and this sudden bout of apathy both surprised and frustrated her. After years of training, dreaming, working toward a goal, to have it seem so colorless and unimportant was something she had never anticipated, and she didn’t know quite how to cope. And though she’d been through all this emotional turmoil with Denys once before, it seemed so much harder this time. Unlike last time, she could not run away until the play had run, which meant she was stuck, like a fly in amber, untilOthellocame to an end. And then, she would have to go as far away as she could get. He’d said their discussion of marriage wasn’t over, and she couldn’t bear to keep having that conversation, for she knew at some point her resistance would disintegrate and she would give in. Where Denys was concerned, she’d always been weak as water.

By opening night, she wondered how she would endure two more months of this. She stared at her reflection in the mirror of her dressing room, at her colorless face and the circles under her eyes, and she tried to rouse herself from her apathy. She could not reenter London’s theatrical world as this haunted creature. Her career as a dramatic actress might only span two months, but it wasn’t going to begin with her looking like this.

She opened the fitted case that held her stage cosmetics, but she’d barely finished applying powder to her face and rouge to her cheeks when the door of her dressing room opened. Lola looked up from the rouge pot she was closing and froze as her eyes met those of Earl Conyers in the mirror.

“Leave us, please,” he said to the other girls preparing for the performance, and they scurried out of the room at once. Her own understudy, Betsy Brown, was the last to go, and she gave Lola a curious glance as she ducked past the earl and closed the door behind her.

Lola closed the pot of rouge, took a deep breath, and stood up, reminding herself that she was about to go on stage in front of an audience that fully expected her to fail, and somehow, that made facing Denys’s father a bit less daunting. By the time she turned around, she was composed and calm, and had even managed to paste a little smile on her lips.

“My lord,” she said, bowing her head a fraction. “This is most unexpected. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I doubt it is a pleasure for you, MissValentine, and it is certainly not one for me. I shall come straight to the point.”

“Must you?” She widened her smile deliberately and gestured to the bottles of champagne open on the table in the center of the room—gifts to the girls from admiring stage-door johnnies. “Surely you’ll have a drink first?”

He shook his head, but Lola strolled over to the table to pour one for herself, for she could certainly use it. A filled flute of fortifying champagne in her hand, she turned toward him, lifting the glass with a sardonic flourish. “You may now come to that point.”

The inference that she was giving him permission made the earl’s face flush with color, but he didn’t take issue with it. “I came to inform you that I have sold my share of the Imperial.”

Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this, and Lola couldn’t quite hide her surprise.

“Yes,” he said, and it was his turn to offer a little smile. “So you see? Your attachment to my son is over.”

“Does Denys know about this?”

“Lord Somerton,” he said with emphasis, “will be informed when he returns from Kent.”

“I see. You didn’t even bother to consult him?”

“What would be the point? I know his opinion on the matter already.”

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